UCS 11+... interview

[orangina]

Hi there,
DS has been offered an interview at UCS next week and I wonder if anyone had any information based on past experience that they might share? Do you know whether they interview a lot of boys and offer a much smaller number of places (ref: Latymer)? Or interview mostly boys they might like to offer a place to plus waitlist (ref: Dulwich College)? We had not expected to be offered an interview so are thrilled, but also feel a bit clueless! Any/all advice offered v gratefully received!

We did this a few years ago and it was the most reassuring and comfortable of all the interviews ds had. It was an individual interview with a teacher who went out of his way to put shy boy at his ease, a group exercise where they looked at a painting and a group chat with the head. We had a scheduled chat with the head which I felt was a marketing exercise to tell us how nice the school was.

I've no idea how many they offer to having made the first cut. I do know one boy who got interview but not offer but far more who either did both interview/offer or neither.

It was a Saturday and they'd laid on biscuits, newspapers and some chatty sixth formers.

Oh thank you for your response and how reassuring! Sounds perfectly do-able, if you see what I mean. Have heard slight horror stories about interviews being like a viva, with more on the spot comprehension questions and mental maths. Sounds more relaxed than that.... am I right?

Did you feel that as parents, you were being interviewed at all? I went through all this with dd 2 years ago, but none of the schools were interested in meeting us...!

Was your interview with the now current head, can you remember?

Thanks so much for your help!

Yes it was the current head, who's lovely.

I didn't feel we were being interviewed at all, if anything the other way round. He asked how many schools we'd applied to and which school he was currently at. This worked in our favour as we'd only applied for three pretty similarly selective schools and were coming from a state school (that was in special measures!).

I do wonder whether interviews are a bit of a formality unless you're at the margins.

Thanks so much Lotsofsighing, that's so helpful. We are also coming from a state school background, but have gone for a more scatter gun approach to our indie applications and he sat for 6 in the end, of varying degrees of selective-ness, in an effort to cover all bases.

Fingers crossed that the UCS interview is more of a formality rather than a whittling down of applicants by another 50%....!